Instagram story viewer> @book.girlfriends> Posts

Bre & Gray

@book.girlfriends

1K

followers

328

following

• readers & writers •
currently reading…
bre: carmilla
gray: tbd

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Download All

G,

I wrote a long review on Storygraph so let me see if I can cut it short here…

The Vorrh is said to be a forest in which Adam and God still play. Where creatures beyond our imagination roam, where the forest itself breathes and lives, where time bends and distorts into it’s own living being. And while we’re told that is the direction all of the characters we’re given are headed, we get perhaps 50 pages out of ~500 seeing the forest at work. I’ve shared a couple of slides that demonstrate the way in which the forest is described—as if it is a spiritual experience—which, I won’t lie, did challenge me to expand my own lyricism when it comes to storytelling. But it wasn’t nearly enough to save the book.

This book was a theological washing of an ecological behemoth which could have been good if not for the way the author left all the raised spiritual questions flapping in the wind. While I did get some satisfaction when a character or two experienced the consequences of their own actions, nothing could supersede the disappointment that 1) all of this frolicking done by a colonialist, European main cast takes place in a fictional colonial town in Africa and 2) the characters Indigenous to the areas are used merely as tools and pawns for the larger colonial narrative. A narrative, need I remind you, that goes nowhere.

This book was reckless as well as ignorant, so much so that in its own “harmless” explorations of the larger themes in life (which, again, it doesn’t even get to) it reaffirms the false imperative that BIPOC characters only appear when it’s time to reaffirm colonial capital and curiosity, even in and after death.

This is a one-star for me. And to anyone who assumes they will get the exploratory nature on biology, self-determination, and the like of Annihilation in this book (I was told if I liked Annihilation, I’d like this book. Plus, Vandermeer review this book positively), believe me when I say you won’t. Pick another 💋

🫶🏾 B
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
#bookstagram #bookrecommendations #whatthisweek #whatsonmybookshelf #booksbooksbooks #explore #reader #honestreviews #booksta #bookaeshetic #scifireads #scifi #speculativefiction by @book.girlfriends

146

6

2 years ago

B,
I’m currently defrosting the winter gloom and trying to really embrace spring, so I went tulip picking this weekend.

What are you currently reading?

-g

.
.
.
#bookstagram #currentlyreading📖 #bookstacks #whatsonmybookshelf #bookaestetic #bookish #currentreads #cursedbread #pulitzerprizeforfiction #inthedistance #litfic #springtime #springtimereading #whatthisweek #booksbooksbooks #readersgonnaread #read #2025reads by @book.girlfriends

131

19

a year ago

B,
It’s been so long! I’m not sure what was going on with me this winter but I felt like I had absolutely no desire to read or post or write reviews. I’m hoping that come 2025 I’m able to reconnect with this account and figure out the type of content I want to produce in the future.

Despite this rough winter I reached my 2024 reading goal of 60 books! Out of those only very few were given 5 stars and so here we have my 5 🌟 reads of 2024 and the quotes/passages that were the most memorable.

Happy new year!

- G
.
.
.
#bookstagram #2024reads #fivestarreads #bookquotes #litfic #horror #queerlit #booklover #reader #bookrecommendations #booksta #monstrilio #liewithme #motherinthedark #akwaekeemezi #bookrecs #favoritebooks #whatireadthisyear #translatedfiction #driveyourplowoverthebonesofthedead #explorepage #readmorebooks #queerliterature by @book.girlfriends

177

20

2 years ago

Haven’t done a monthly tbr/hopefuls in agessss.

So! Here’s what l’m planning to to read this October 🦇🕸️:

• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Tokarczuk (translated by Lloyd-Jones from Polish)
• Pedro Páramo by Rulfo (in the original Spanish)

I’m super excited to read in Spanish, especially after having read Stillborn and Paradais in their translated English and feeling like I was missing the true essence of the writing itself.
What are you planning to read this October?

- g
.
.
.

#bookstagram #bookrecommendations #tor #monthlytbr #pedroparamo #driveyourplowoverthebonesofthedead
#translatedfiction #halloweenreads #scarystories #literaryhorror #whatthisweek #monthlyrecap #whatsonmybookshelf #adayinthelife #booksbooksbooks #explore #reader #booksta #bookaesthetic #bookrecs #juanrulfo #olgatokarczuk by @book.girlfriends

188

19

2 years ago

G,

I’ve posted about Dear Senthuran once before but never did I give it the spotlight that it deserves. Dear Senthuran is a collection of ruminations written in the form of letters to various individuals in Emezi’s life. Through this intimacy, Emezi discloses and explores their relationship with life, death, creative destiny, friendship, self-reverence, discipline, and so much more. They reveal how they are very much a being not entirely of this world and so expansive something so neglible as flesh cannot contain them. It’s unapologetic on an entirely different level.

I always return to this book when I’m accumulating the activation energy necessary to launch me beyond the plateau of stagnation and into the upper atmosphere of metamorphosis. When I’ve hung around in the liminal space before here and there long enough and it’s time to make real the visions sitting in my mind’s eye. Emezi calls this worldbending, going beyond the four elements of nature and bending reality itself with your very own fingertips. But beware: it is grueling, hungry, and sometimes isolating work.

This book takes you anywhere and everywhere, making it hard to summarized. What I will say is that, undoubtedly, this book is a gift to avid readers—and especially writers—who experience so many different worlds many times over it becomes hard not to see the arbitrariness and fickleness in our own. And so we play along, we wear our masks, all so we can focus on putting the essential work towards the magic that matters.

🫶🏾 B
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
#dearsenthuran #akwaekeemezi #bookstagram #bookreview #fivestarreviews #fivestarreads #queerauthor #nigerianauthor #queerauthor #bookrecs #bookrecommendations #bookaesthetic by @book.girlfriends

97

4

2 years ago

B,

Monstrilio is Gerardo Sámano Córdova’s stunning debut novel that explores the monstruos effects that grief can have on the psyche, begging us to ask ourselves the question: how far are we willing to go to escape the pain?

We follow four central characters: Magos, Lena, Joseph, and M. All four of them impacted by 11 year old Santiago’s death in different ways. You have Magos and Joseph, Santiago’s parents. Lena a family friend who’s in love with Magos. And M, the surrogate child.

Magos’ section within the book was my favorite. I found her character the most fascinating to study, her mind was the most infantile, in a way. Magos recognized that she had Joseph and Lena wrapped around her finger, always ready at a moments notice to swoop in and save her if she were to need them. This type of power at times made her come off as petulant, expectant of someone else to shoulder the burden of her grief. For how does a mother cope with the loss of a child? In Magos’ case, she doesn’t. Instead she focuses all of her time and energy in caring for the piece of lung that she cut out from Santiago’s corpse. She gives it life, grooming the little monster that is born out of the lung to fill in the role for the son that she lost.

I truly cannot praise this book and Córdova’s writing enough. This was a 5 star read and if haven’t added it to your TBR or picked it up yet, what are you doing!

- g
.
.
.
#bookstagram #monstrilio #bookreview #queerhorror #hispanicheritagemonth #bookrecs #literaryhorror #latinoheritagemonth #fivestarread #booksbooksbooks #horrorbooks #bookquotes #bookaesthetic #reader #booksta #bookrecommendation by @book.girlfriends

206

33

2 years ago

G,

Summer went on by, hot and quick, I hardly remembered to document it. I changed jobs, and I moved. Both of which made summer a season of transition. A pause. Stuck between here and there, before and after. Yet always gaining momentum.

Poetically, I digress.

When I feel this feeling that something is about to happen, I turn to a book that showed me how to molt and evolve. To bend words and worlds. But rereading old inked over quotes wasn’t going to be enough. I needed a new copy and I needed to read it over and I needed to mark it up anew. And voila. An evolution.

While I queue up my reread review (Bre-read Review? Hold on, let me cook!!), I’m reading another book that’s lit a fire in my creative mind. It’s so strange and brutal. It’s human fascination at play.

Strange, how when you’ve taken on new perspective, delicious worlds just find their way too you.

I cannot wait to share.

🫶🏾 B by @book.girlfriends

132

11

2 years ago

B,
As I said, I am catching up on reviews and Love Novel is next!

Love Novel captures the ugliest side of love, the kind of love that is so full of resentment and old pain that it makes you want to hurt, to scream, to suffocate one another in it.

Our two unnamed protagonists blame one another for their shortcomings: one a failed actress, the other a failed Dante scholar who can’t seem to write anything. Their relationship then becomes a long series of rather unfortunate events: she becomes pregnant, he turns to alcohol, neither seem to be able to keep a job for long which leads to piles and piles of debt to accumulate.

Their 2-bedroom apartment becomes their own personal hell, one that they can’t even begin to fathom escaping… nor would they if they had the chance. The resentment and hatred that grows between them creates a lethal stubbornness where neither will call it quits. This was very much reflected in Sajko’s writing and Simić’s translation, each sentence ran right into the other, no breaks between paragraphs, thus creating an atmosphere that feels as though you’re suffocating right alongside them.

Thank you to @biblioasis_books for the copy of Love Novel. 🤍

xx Gray
.
.
.
#bookstagram #lovenovel #womenintranslation #translatedfiction #bookreview #litfic #books #reader #bookrecommendations #whatiread #bookreader #bookquotes #croationliterature #translatedbooks by @book.girlfriends

129

12

2 years ago

𝕘𝕚𝕧𝕖𝕒𝕨𝕒𝕪

Thank you all so much for 1K! When Bre and I created this account 2 years ago never did we imagine that we would have created this little book community of one thousand people!

Bre and I created book.girlfriends on a whim after becoming long distance best friends: Bre had moved to Chicago to pursue their masters in English, & I was beginning to play with the idea of moving out of the country to pursue my own masters in Interior Design. Our bookstagram became a way for us to stay in touch and share our love of books with each other which is why you see all of our reviews/posts start off as a letter to one another.

To celebrate this milestone and show our appreciation for you all, we’re hosting a giveaway!

𝕘𝕚𝕧𝕖𝕒𝕨𝕒𝕪
The winner will receive:
• a book of their choice
• a custom bookmark from Bre
• annotating supplies (tabs, pens, sticky notes, etc)
• a custom recipe card for a cocktail/mocktail from Bre.

𝕙𝕠𝕨 𝕚𝕥 𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕜𝕤
• Comment on this post a book that you recommend the most
• Like and share this post on your story
• Must be following @book.girlfriends

𝕓𝕠𝕟𝕦𝕤 𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕣𝕪
• Tag someone you consider to be your “book.girlfriend” / “book.boyfriend” in the comments and a favorite book of yours that was recommended by them.

Giveaway starts August 7th at 10 AM EST and will close August 17th at 11:59 PM EST. Giveaway is open internationally, if selected you must be willing to share your address with us. Winner will be selected at random and notified on Instagram via the book.girlfriends account on August 19th. by @book.girlfriends

269

136

2 years ago

B,

In Pew we follow an unknown person that has no distinguishable markers of race, age, or gender. They appear to just be wandering through the world aimlessly with no recollection of their past or where they might even come from. After being caught sleeping in a church in an unknown American Southern town, the townsfolk decide to take in this mysterious individual and name them Pew. Pew by chance arrives as the townsfolk are getting ready for their Forgiveness Festival, a mysterious tradition that everyone just about refuses to explain outright.

Catherine Lacey captures a perfect snapshot of the sociopolitical climate of America. With Pew, Lacey is able to hold a larger conversation about how our bodies and our bodily autonomy is not our own, how society feels more at ease when it’s able to label your Race, Gender, and Sexuality easily and efficiently.

Lacey is not only able to capture Southern America’s sociopolitical climate with such beautiful simple writing, but Lacey is also able to take the theme of identity and abstract it completely, creating a character that is so ambiguous that it makes it nearly impossible for the reader to be able to attach any preconceived notions or biases on Pew. By abstracting identity to the point that the word itself begins to hold no meaning, Lacey is able to push the reader to think about their own identity: how do we talk about ourselves outside of the context of race, gender, sexuality, etc? Who are we outside of these boxes that society makes us check off? Does our identity merely exist within social constructs?

Pew caused me to reflect on my own identity and my relationship with my body and bodily autonomy. As a nonbinary person (and I’m sure you can relate here Bre) there are so many moments where I wish that my body could shift and mold to my liking. Or on days where my dysmorphia is particularly vicious, that I wish most that my body and self could simply not be perceived at all, that my body could just exist without having to check off one of society’s boxes.

This goes without saying that Pew was a five star read. Thank you @tigbooks for this recommendation 😫🤍

xx, G by @book.girlfriends

186

29

2 years ago

B,

Lie With Me was one of those novels, that despite its length, was able to leave me both speechless and with an aching heart.

Our narrator, Philippe recounts his story of first love: developing a crush on the school’s It boy, the quiet and yet lethally beautiful Farmer’s son, Thomas. Philippe is content with watching him from afar, understanding that beautiful boys like Thomas are not meant for him, they’re meant for girls. It isn’t until one fateful day that Thomas reaches out to Philippe, that everything he believed to be true is forever change.

Philippe and Thomas are ill-fated lovers; shame, fear, and inexperienced youth converge to create a toxic combination. Effectively infiltrating the bubble they had built for themselves. Once reality sets in, the following events that occur will come to haunt both boys in the years to come.

Philippe Besson captures what it means to grow up queer, to instinctually know that your desires are to be kept a secret. That in order to survive out in the world there is a role that you have to play, masks that you have to wear to remain undetectable. He reminds us that while some are able to come to terms with what makes us different, that difference is also capable of eating others from the inside out.

This was a five star read. But you already knew that because I may or may not have convinced you to get a copy. 🫢

Love, G

.
.
.
#bookstagram #liewithme #philippebesson #translatedfiction #frenchliterature #bookreview #bookrecommendations #reader #booksbooksbooks #mlmbooks #fivestarread #booksthatmademecry #bookquotes #favoritequote #bookaesthetic by @book.girlfriends

263

25

2 years ago

B,
Ignore the fact that the first week of July has come and went. Here’s a little #whatthisweek for the end of pride month! We had some really pretty thunderstorms hit the valley that I live in, it was so dreamy watching the storms from the balcony. My step sibling turned 15 🥲 and it was so sweet celebrating their birthday.

I read a total of 10 books this month and have officially hit 32 out of 60 books read for the year. Full reviews to come for my two stand out reads of the month: Lie with Me and Pew. So be on the look out!

- G
.
.
.
#booksta #minireview #photodump #pridemonthtbr #queerbooks #queerlit #whatiread #bookrecommendations #junereadingwrapup #monthlywrap #bookreader #bookreview #litfic #romancereader #queerhorror #queerfantasy #audiobook #bookstagram #queerbookstagrammer #queerbookstagram by @book.girlfriends

121

17

2 years ago